Homebuilt Computer Boot issues

A

ajmartin80

New Member
Recently, my homebuilt computer has been having boot issues. My build is located here: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/gjs7Jx. I am using a 120GB Intel 530 Series SSD for my OS and a 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM mechanical drive for everything else (mostly just Steam games for now, it's still pretty new).

A week or so ago, out of nowhere, when I tried to turn my computer on, I encountered a "Windows had failed to start" error message with an error code 0xc000000e ("The boot selection because a required device is inaccessible.")

The exact error screen is on this site: https://neosmart.net/wiki/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2013/08/0xc000000e-boot-error.png

After unplugging all exterior connections, restarting with no success, and rechecking my internal connections, the error was still appearing. Only after disconnecting and reconnecting my hard drives is when I was able to boot my computer with Windows 7 Home Premium. Once my computer was on, there were no problem. Only turning it on proved unsuccessful.

A few days ago, my Windows 10 upgrade was available and I hoped it would somehow solve my boot issues, so I started the process. The problem with changing OS is that the computer needs to restart a few times. So, after many different tries upgrading to Windows 10, I was able to finish it, but I still have the boot issue.

NOW, the error screen is a simpler "Reboot and select proper Boot Device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device" (https://neosmart.net/wiki/wp-conten...5/02/reboot-and-select-proper-boot-device.jpg).

If I want to start my computer properly, I need to:
1. Shut off computer
2. Disconnect my 2 TB Mechanical drive
3. Start the computer (the same Boot Device screen appears, even though my SSD with the OS is connected)
4. Shut off computer and reconnect Mechanical drive
5. Turn on computer
6. Voila!

My MSI motherboard and the BIOS are fully up to date. I went to the BIOS and made sure the SSD was the primary boot device. I'm not sure what else can be the issue.

I looked at my 2 TB drive's storage usage, and 1.47GB of its usage is for System Files and "These system files help Windows work properly. You PC won't work without them." The only other reserved space on my 2TB drive is for virtual memory (16GB).

Thank you for looking over my issues. I'm new to the whole DIY computer experience.
 
Look in BIOS to see if you are booting in AHCI (advanced host controller interface) or IDE mode. I had a PC once that wouldn't boot correctly in AHCI after Windows was installed using IDE. There have been other users who reported problems switching these modes after Windows was installed. It can be that your system was booting with one of these modes by default and that through a driver and/or hardware install it switched. Also, some claim that SSD drives run better using the AHCI mode, but I can't confirm that.
 
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Did you install windows to the SSD while the Seagate drive was attached to the system? If so, it sounds like the boot files were put on the Seagate drive and its sounds like its failing on you. Run seatools for dos on it and check health of drive.

Seatools for dos download - http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-dos-master/

Download the ISO, and burn the image to a cd and then boot to the cd and run the extended test on the drive. Just don't copy the iso to a cd as it won't work, the image must be written to the cd. Even though the drive is new, it can still be bad.
 
I looked at the BIOS. I am booting in AHCI. There is no IDE option, just AHCI and Legacy+AHCI. Legacy+AHCI only boots off of CD's, USB's, etc, not hard drives.

I burned the Seatools program onto a CD and ran it at boot. However, it doesn't recognize my 2TB Seagate hard drive. It's not listed in the Seatools program. After work tonight, I might try an earlier version of Seatools, but for now, I am still lost.
 
ajmartin80 said:
I looked at the BIOS. I am booting in AHCI. There is no IDE option, just AHCI and Legacy+AHCI. Legacy+AHCI only boots off of CD's, USB's, etc, not hard drives.
Click to expand...

The link below will allow you to download the manual for your motherboard.

http://www.msi.com/support/mb/B85M-G43.html/#down-manual

On page 66 you will see that your board does in fact have an IDE mode. To rule out the possibility of a SATA mode error try switching to IDE and reboot your PC.
 
You didn't say if you installed the OS with both the SSD and the platter installed. If so that could be your problem.
 
Ahh, yes, my bad. I was looking at UEFI instead of AHCI. I was able to find that I was booting with AHCI. I switched it to IDE and rebooted my PC multiple times but with no success at all. I changed it back to AHCI and now I can start my computer again using the process I listen in my original post.

And yes, I installed Windows 7 Home Premium with both my SSD and Mechanical drives installed. How could this be the problem? When the installation process asked me which drive to install the OS to, I selected my SSD.

I double checked both my drives and both are up to date. I was suspicious that 17.47GB of my 2TB drive is reserved for system files. I looked at the Driver File Details and found these 3 files on my mechanical drive:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\disk.sys
C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\EhStorClass.sys
C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\partmgr.sys

Also, I looked at the past events for my 2TB drive and found these events:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

TIMESTAMP | DESCRIPTION
8/6/2015 1:00:12 PM | Device not migrated
8/6/2015 1:00:12 PM | Device configured (disk.inf)
8/6/2015 1:00:12 PM | Device started (disk)

Information:
Device SCSI\Disk&Ven_&Prod_ST2000DM001-1ER1\4&5b5f2f2&0&040000 could not be migrated.

Last Device Instance Id: IDE\DISKINTEL_SSDSC2BW120A4_____________________DC32____\5&2E589158&0&5.0.0
Class Guid: {4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Location Path:
Migration Rank: 0xF000FC00FFFFF120
Present: true
Status: 0xC0000719

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Is the 2TB mechanical drive the source of my issues? If so, how do I fix it? Is there a way to transfer the system files onto my SSD? Or do I need to uninstall the drive and reinstall?
 
Ok, this is what I would do. Disconnect all drives from the board except the DVD-ROM and the SSD drive you will be booting/installing Windows to. Connect your DVD-ROM to SATA_0, connect the SSD to SATA_1. Boot into BIOS and check to see if the boot order is: 1. DVD-ROM, 2. SSD. Place your Windows DVD in the DVD-ROM. Reboot your PC. The computer should now boot to the DVD-ROM. Once you've established that this is possible, you then have a couple of choices. If it was me, I would format the drive and reinstall Windows. But, before you do this, boot your system with a Linux Live DVD and backup your data to whatever drive is available to you. If this doesn't work for you then maybe there is something else going other than a screwed up boot process.
 
Agent Smith said:
You didn't say if you installed the OS with both the SSD and the platter installed. If so that could be your problem.
Click to expand...
Why would that matter? I have my OS on an SSD and on an old 120GB mechanical drive - 2 different installs. Both are connected. No problem.

Sounds like a boot record problem. I'm assuming the SSD is still Windows 10? I think recovery mode still a thing with windows 10, but I'm having trouble finding much about it. Either way, you're going to need a bootable device. http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=616936 for a tool that can create a 64bit Windows 10 install disc. Boot from it, and see if you can get to a repair install.
 
I still say since the had was attached while installing to ssd that the boot files are on mechanical drive and the drive is failing. Disconnect the hdd and use the install cd to repair the boot loader. Should be an option to repair computer when booting to it.
 
If you say so. I've done it plenty of times, no problem. There's no reason you can't install windows (or Linux) with 2 hard disks connected.
 
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